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How to watch the 2016 Ronde van Drenthe, & follow the Drentse 8 LIVE!

Ronde van Drenthe Women’s World Tour: Saturday 12th March

Drense Acht van Westerveld: Sunday 13th March

After the Strade Bianche opened the Women’s World Tour on Saturday, the races are coming weekly for the next month. Ronde van Drenthe has been one of the most reliable and easy women’s cycling races to watch for years, and is always a great show – one of those races that when it was a Road World Cup has been won every way from solo effort to small group to bunch sprint.

And it’s such a fun course – three time over the weirdest climb in procycling, the VAM-berg, a man-made hill that’s made out of landfill, and so grows every couple of years, and has an average gradient of 17.5%, getting to a max 23%. It’s definitely one for the punchy climbers out there. There there are three sections of cobbles, just 9.3km in total, but they’re really difficult. Annemiek van Vleuten described them as more like rocks just shoved off a truck than normal pavé, and they run through forests, so are covered with moss, and they usually burst the race apart. And if that’s not enough, there are the wide open sections through fields, where if there’s the slightest bit of wind (and it’s usually gales) there will be echelons forever – and some technical corners in Hoogeveen, with about eight 90º corners in the last 2.5k. Have I told you I love this race?

There are TWO livestreams! The RTV DrentheandRTV Oostlivestreams are both showing it, and the feeds start on Saturday 12th March at 13:30 CET (12:30pm GMT; 11:30pm AEDT; 7:30am EST) which the RTV website says is live, with the men’s race TV from 16:00 CET. Keep an eye on the RTV Drenthe TV guide and RTV Oost guide in case anything changes, but they’re very reliable. The livestreams are both fabulously un-geo-restricted but get on it early because cycling fans tend to crash it.

That commentary will be in Dutch, but if you want some in English, superstar Bridie O’Donnell and I will be bringing our own unique spin on the race and doing our own commentary on the Prowomenscycling Mixlr that you can listen to. Open that in a tab in the background, and run one of the streams on mute and hopefully it’ll synch up. Head to Mixlr once the race starts, or find the exact link on my twitter – we’re going for the vibe of two cycling mates enjoying ourselves, one of whom has actually ridden the race, and hope you’ll like it too!

How to follow the race before the stream starts

There are so many reasons the Drenthe organisers are some of my favourites in the sport, and one of them is how easy they make it to follow the race, with a facebook, instagram, a superb twitter., and this year a special Ronde van Drenthe app. Hartelijk Dank! There’s usually a race ticker too, which I’ll edit in when it appears – and of course, I have my list of live race tweeters who’ll be updating from team cars at the roadside.

If all that’s made you want more Drenthe, right now, watch the videos from last year’s World Cup, and from 2014, and 2013, and 2012 and 2011. I’m sure we’ll see a lot more media, previews and interesting things, so I’ll edit things in as I see them – and as always, if you find more, please do leave a comment here or tell me on twitter so I can share them – and of course, that’s the way you can ask any questions during the race, when I’ll be commentweeting happily, because this is always one of my favourites.

I’m funded to do this kind of women’s cycling work thanks to my wonderful Patreon supporters – thank you so much! If you want to join them from just £1.50/$2 a month, there’s more information here.